Aspects of the disclosure relate to computing technologies, including computer software and computer hardware. In particular, various aspects of the disclosure relate to using one or more sensors to determine the indoor or outdoor state of a mobile device. Context-aware computing can be utilized in a mobile device to determine the indoor/outdoor state.
Personal computing devices, such as mobile phones, tablet computers and laptop computer are becoming increasingly popular. In addition, a number of software applications and other functionalities that can be provided on a computing device can use indoor/outdoor state information to further enhance a user's experience when using such a device.
For example, using indoor/outdoor state information can facilitates a range of applications, such as: gating power-draining location determination (e.g., Global Positioning System (GPS) fixes); gating power-draining search for wireless local area network (WLAN); triggering or disabling on-device indoor navigation systems; and feeding situational awareness information (e.g., user is on the street, bus, subway) to other applications.
In some instances, however, a device might not know its current indoor/outdoor state, and/or might lack certain specialized hardware, software, reference information, and/or other resources that could be used in determining the current indoor/outdoor state of the device.
One way of overcoming these issues is to have such a device use power-intensive sensors (e.g., GPS, camera, Bluetooth, GPS, WLAN) to observe information at its current location, and then use this information with substantial post-processing of the sensor data in order to make an accurate indoor/outdoor state determination. For example, a conventional method to determine indoor/outdoor state is for the device to simultaneously use multiple high power sensors (e.g., GPS, WLAN, camera, motion information), and make a determination based on all the sensor data. Another example of a conventional method includes using a GPS fix over time and determining the indoor/outdoor state based on the visibility of satellites. However, conventional methods are very power intensive and therefore cannot be on an always-on mode. Additionally, conventional methods may not make accurate determination of the indoor/outdoor state.